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Sunday, 23 August 2015

Add a global hotkey to Easy2Boot

You can define global hotkeys to do various things by adding hotkey commands to the \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file. Some examples are given in the \_ISO\Sample_MyE2B.cfg file.

Do you have a favourite ISO file that you always like to boot to in Easy2Boot?
Why not set up a global hotkey for it so you can boot to it from any E2B menu?
What about booting Hirens or WindowsToGo or WinPE, using a hotkey from any menu?

For instance, set up the F11 hotkey to always run an Ubuntu Live ISO (or any ISO file) from any menu, by adding the line below to your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file:

(bd)/%grub%/hotkey [F11] "(bd)/%grub%/qrun.g4b force.isodefault (bd)/_ISO/MyUbuntu.iso ;; boot" > nul
This assumes you have a MyUbuntu.iso file already present in the \_ISO folder, but you could change the path to point to any ISO file, anywhere on the E2B drive.

The 'force.isodefault' prevents E2B from suggesting alternative file extensions by forcing QRUN.g4b to treat the ISO file as if it had a .isodefault file extension. Instead, you could just re-name your ISO file with the .isodefault file extension and use:(bd)/%grub%/hotkey [F11] "(bd)/%grub%/qrun.g4b (bd)/_ISO/MyUbuntu.isodefault ;; boot" > nul

(bd) is grub4dos-speak for the 'boot device', i.e. the partition that contains E2B. We use it in case we happen to be in an E2B menu that has changed the root device to another partition when the user presses the F11 key (e.g. PTN2_MNU.mnu).

Instead of an ISO payload, you could use a .VHD payload or .imgPTNAUTO payload or .WIM payload, etc. etc.